Victim hopes witnesses will come forward to identify attacker

Billy Stamp hopes someone can identify the attacker who bashed him in the face with a crowbar in a vicious weekend attack.

Stamp, 22, said he was hit around 4 a.m. Saturday after stepping outside a friend’s apartment complex on Torbay Road in St. John’s.

He said he blacked out from the blow, lost several teeth and was taken by ambulance to the Health Sciences Centre where he waited about six hours.

After surgery to implant metal plates in his cheekbone and lower jaw, he said he was released Monday. One side of Stamp’s face is swollen and bruised and he can only feed himself through a straw.

“If only someone will come forward with a name,” Stamp told The Telegram Monday.

His speech was muffled by his injuries.

“It’s going to cost a lot of money to get my teeth back.”

The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary said officers responded to a fight 4:30 a.m. on Torbay Road in which several people were involved. The RNC said there were several weapons used, but wouldn’t confirm what the weapons were, as that could be used as evidence if charges are laid.

Const. Karen Didham said two men suffered significant, but non-life-threatening injuries and one man suffered a less serious injury.

The major crime unit is investigating and has several witnesses to interview.

Stamp said he won’t be able to return to his job at the recycling centre at Robin Hood Bay for a couple of months.

“That kind of put me down at rock bottom,” he said.

Stamp said he and some friends he’s known for 10 years left the Grumpy Stump bar at closing time and went to the apartment building.

"He cracked my skull. ...I was in the wrong place at the wrong time."Billy Stamp

“We were all having a good time,” he said.

Then two men arrived, one with a gash in his head. Stamp said he didn’t know them but thought they might live in the same complex.

He said the two men reported being jumped and Stamp and his friends tried to patch up the gash. The pair went outside to smoke and a commotion broke out when they said their attackers showed up.

“It was the same b’ys that jumped them before. I went outside to see what was going on,” Stamp said, adding there were four or five men there pursuing the pair.

That’s when Stamp got whacked in the face by one of the attackers wielding a crowbar.

“I was knocked out. I was shaking for a couple of seconds but I got up and made it to the hospital,” Stamp said, adding he did nothing to provoke the strike.

“He cracked my skull … I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Stamp said a girl at the party tried to come to his aid when he went down and got struck in the leg . H said she was bruised but didn’t go to hospital.

Two other men were also hit, he said.

Stamp said while he was waiting in emergency his teeth were hanging loose. Four or five teeth were knocked out by the crowbar and he said the doctor had to remove another four or five.

Comments

Recent comments

who says we are not getting the full story from this guy , just because he's a big guy and looks like he can handle himself doesn't make him a liar , he obviously has some good friends on here vouching for his reputation and he held down a steady job , I really pity him when I look at the pictures , he looks kinda like a gentle giant and the type to come to someones aid who was in trouble , This city is getting worse and turning as bad as any other big city , everyone now seems to carry a knife (I do for my own protectiona0 , and have also have been harassed by teenagers in malls , If I'm not with my kids I usually am too stubborn to back down so I challenge them back..........I know that's not an attitude that a 49 year old family man should have , I agree , but if you challenge alot of these punk kids who are brave in numbers , they usually back off , on numerous occasions while leaving the mall I had to speak to a bunch of teenagers that were dropping the F bomb when I was leaving the mall with my pre teen kids.Any Billy don;t know ya but God bless ya man , speedy recovery and best wishes , I have had two buddies over the past 20 years that got jumped and beaten up at random for no reason ........yeah it takes a real man to beat up a guy with 4 of his buddies.........they should be sent to a zoo so they can live with the rest of the animals

to BELLS* give you a break? This is my best friend your talking about here
Hes the nicest person you'd ever meet in your life.
He may be a big guy, but he would hurt a fly. Hes not the type of person to go public just to lie about it.

Billy I cant believe that this happened to you. I'm sure that you didn't deserve it. Your not the type of person to be out fighting or even provoking a fight. I hope they find out who done this and they get what they deserve! Hope you have a quick and full recovery! Take Care.....Melanie and Richard Gillard

BELLS
Nobody deserves to have their head smashed in by two psychos, or a girl be hit in the leg with a crowbar, or another man get hit in the face with a chain. Is that the kind of break your talking about? Not giving us the full story ... isn't the picture evidence?

I hope these jerks are found and justice brought. There is no reason ppl have to be so ignorant. Has anyone considered a fund raiser to help Billy with his medical and dental bills as well as the money he will need to live while he is unable to work? Does Canada have a fund for victims of violence? We have that here in the US it's not a lot of money but every little bit helps.

Wondering why the hospital didn't notify RNC of a crime committed, it's mandated where I live. How else would anyone know if not told. The viciousness of the attack is mind blowing, something I never expected in the city of my birth. So sad for the young victim.

I feel I should have mentioned in my last comment that I heard from someone who knows the injured people quite well that one of the other men that was hurt was hit in the face with a chain. This won't help poor Billy, but if anyone reads about it & knows how seriously crazy these people are, hopefully they will realize how important it is that they come forward & tell who it is.

It was heartbreaking to hear about this. It's only my opinion, which I'm entitled to, but I feel if these people took weapons and went looking for the guys they initially were fighting with & had the intention of doing some serious bodily harm, then it probably could be classified as attempted murder. They knew the damage these weapons could do to someone, probably kill them, & they just didn't care. And someone who wasn't even involved in any of it to begin with is lucky to be alive. Someone at that bar had to see the people that were involved & should report it so that these insane people don't get the chance to do this again to someone else.

It is very sad that people feel the need to resort to such cruel things as beating up other people and causing such harm. Chances are the attackers we either drunk or on some sort of drugs because no person in the right mind would attack a group of people. Billy is very fortunate not to have sustained more damage than he has after being attacked with a crow bar to the head. Hopefully justice will be served and the people who have done this come to realize just how terrible they have been.

scliploon, it's not only the teachers who should have more control, it's the parents. The laws today enable this kind of behavior because if you say boo to discipline your child they're on the phone call the authorities and everything is so out of control these days because the majority know tthey can get off with just about anything. I don't see too many of these punks putting on a military uniform to go fight for their country when there are kids their age or younger dying for it, dying to give them the frredom they have.

lots of responses to this topic yet not one offering a solution, well here's mine... cary guns and murder anyone who threatens to do you harm. then, if you run into someone else who has a gun, you get murdered. problem solved. the "laws" we have as humans are just rules, and people will continue to break them forever. the only true law is the law of nature which is kill or be killed. simple as that. the only reason people assualt other people - especially in groups - is because they know they will get away with it. nobody returns the favor due to fear of consequences from our "rules" it's only a game if both sides are playing, and if not you might as well play ping pong with a wall, because you're not going to win.

Oh my God people! Look at the way you are all arguing with each other!!! Make no wonder children of today are so out of control when they have this type of bull as an example of acceptable ways to treat each other. What happened to this young man is criminal and I hope someone comes forward....as for the rest of you....Grow up and act your ages. Stop being so nasty to people you don't even know.

It takes a brave lad to blind-side someone with a crow-bar. Please, someone identify this animal and put it behind bars where it belongs. it was only luck that Stamp was not killed or seriusly disabled.

Pam: Investigative reporting means knowing about things before forty eight hours passes! Nice to know the Telegram has their finger on the pulse of the city. Does anyone work on the weekend or is that why Monday morning is discovery time? Forty eight hours is ridiculous.

I am 43 years old, came down the stairs from the Dr's office inside Terrace on the Square and got harrassed by 3 punks sitting on the steps outside Shoppers, but inside the building because it was raining. Asking me if I had a problem??? Only i was with my wife and 11 year old daughter i might have answered them. Kids today have no respect for nothing and nobody and i think the teachers should be allowed to have more "control" over them to teach them right from wrong!!!

Wavy, how can you condemn the HSC ER when you have nothing to go on except the wait time, which had nothing to do with this story btw. The person was seen, had surgery, and is home. People do get seen by nurses and docs right away in there. If he was conscious on arrival he'd been seen, assessed, xray'd, CT'd if needed, he obviously was consulted to a plastic surgeon and had his surgery to fix his face. Get informed about how things work, how assessment and an ER runs, before making stupid comments. I know for sure that with his injuries and how it happened he wouldn't be in the waiting room for 6 hours, as you assume is the case.
And again, what does the wait room time have to do with this story anyway?
I hope they catch the person viscious enough to assault someone in this manner!

I wasn't condemning the HSC ER or any other department in particular. I was commenting on the statement "he waited six hours", as it appeared in the article. I am quite familiar with the workings of the ER and, unlike your omniscient assessment of the entire situation, I stuck to the stated facts of the article.
"What's it like to think you have the entire world figured out?" you say? Ha! For one so willing to critisize and jump down people's throats you seem pretty quick to jump to false conclusions; a little "projection" perhaps? Switch to decaf man...and come down off your high horse.

Pam Frampton, Telegram story editor

April 19, 2011 - 08:18

Jim: We only heard about the attack on Billy Stamp on Monday, and so he was interviewed Monday for our Tuesday edition.

More uniformed people making dumb assumptions. What's it like to think you have the entire world figured out?

Rhonda

April 19, 2011 - 10:35

Crack Media Squad?? What are you expecting... the media to be out all hours in the night waiting for a fight to break out? Unless someone comes forward with a story the media will not know about it. Things happen all the tine and if no one reports it to the media then the media don't have any way to know about it.... think about that before you post these rude comments.

dave

April 19, 2011 - 07:54

Low life scum strike again, someone out there please give the RNC a name.